Create variable from print_r output [duplicate]

Answer 1

If you want to import a var_export()'s variable, you can run the eval() function. Or if you save the contents into a file (with a return statement), you can use the return value of include() or require().

But I would rather use serialize() and unserialize() or json_encode() and json_decode().

define('EXPORT_JSON', 1);
define('EXPORT_SERIALIZE', 2);

function exportIntoFile($var, $filename, $method=EXPORT_JSON)
{
  if ( $method & EXPORT_JSON )
    file_put_contents( $filename, json_encode($var) );
  else if ($method & EXPORT_SERIALIZE)
    file_put_contents( $filename, serialize($var) );
}
function importFromFile($filename, $method=EXPORT_JSON)
{
  if ( $method & EXPORT_JSON )
    return json_decode( file_get_contents($filename) );
  else if ($method & EXPORT_SERIALIZE)
    return unserialize( file_get_contents($filename) );
}